Review of Create Your Friends
by Matthew Fritch
From Magnet Magazine June 2003
The Lemonheads started as a group of prep-school boys outfitted in Chuck Taylors, ripped jeans and hardcore t-shirts and sounded very much like the goofy, irreverant punk-band-next-door. Create Your Friends compiles the band's first two albums (Creator and Hate Your Friends) on one disc and conducts a two-pronged invasion of the SST and Dischord labels' catalogs. Vocal and songwriting duties are two-headed as well: Dando is responsible for most of these adolescent-thrash numbers, but the best moments belong to Ben Deily. His adenoidal voice and snotty delivery prop up some seriously tuneful, Descendents-like relationship songs ("Ever" and "Second Chance" are pre-emo artifacts), plus a lonely acoustic ballad ("Postcard") that surely had hearts breaking all over Boston. Wrong to love you: Deily would barely make it to the next record.